


On Betazed

by Lionessinthedark



Series: Star Trek into darkness.....a bit different [12]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt, Khan is not a bad guy after all, M/M, Mentions of torture and injuries, Multi, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Relationship but no sex, T'hy'la, bad memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 23:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4282113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionessinthedark/pseuds/Lionessinthedark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can the Betazoids heal Khan? And if he can be healed would he then remain the same afterwards? Why are so many acting out of character? Are there any hidden agendas?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter one

Khan, well actually not “Khan”, but the alpha-clone Khan, had agreed on being cryo-tubed again. It was either that or being confined to that blasted brig for a long time again. He hated those white walls even he understood why it was necessary and in fact himself had asked to be put there.

It didn’t indicate though that he thought the idea of being an icicle again was appealing. Bones, Kirk and Spock had persuaded him to keep on living and not kill himself because he saw himself as a to huge risk for everyone, but even if he had been prepared to have another unpleasant stay in imprisonment, Khan had found Bones idea of cryo-tubing the lesser of two evils. 

Before he was frozen they had told him about their plans…their rather illegal plans and Jim and Spock would have to bend Star-fleet regulations to the breaking point if they should find an excuse to jump around in the Galaxy like that…first from Growlar II and then to Kurill Prime in the Domminion in the rim of the Alpha Quadrant and then back again to Betazed near the Dorvan Sector. The visit to the Vorta-system – the Dominion - was thanks to all unknown Gods actually an assignment from the Federation but Jim’s closest officers had had to be really creative to make up an excuse for the multi-parsec-travel to Betazed. 

Their excuse had been fragile and transparent as glass as the will of all godmothers and fairies broke through and they got an actual order from the Star-fleet Federation……and an excuse. Because their diplomatic encounter with the rather difficult Vortas had been such an immense success, the “Galactic Counsel” of which the Federation was only a tiny fraction, had asked for this specifically crew and their captain to make an approach towards The Zena-Empire in the Dorvan Sector. How much luck could they have? They could now without suspicion come close to Betazed and use a stay there as a very much needed leave for the hard working crew of the USS Enterprise. A leave granted from the Starfleet Federation.  
________________________

So…Khan was frozen again. To expect him to stay in the brig the three months it would take to get to Betazed would be cruel and even if the brig was made cosier with blankets and a bit of furniture, it was and always would be a holding cell. What made it even worse was that Khan didn’t really trust anyone but Jim, Spock or Bones anymore. The rest of the officers had chosen to believe the worst about him, had threatened him and had allowed the guards to injure him….and that even without in any way to take care of him as he was thrown into a brig again, bleeding. 

First as Bones, Jim and Spock returned to the USS Enterprise the officers had been willing to listen to Khan’s explanations and now they tried to make it up to him again by visiting the brig-area and offer their sincere apologies. Khan had tried to be polite but he actually didn’t want to talk to anyone except the guards (who not was the ones who shot him) and Bones, Jim and Spock. But he knew that he somehow had to find a way to forgive them.....or else Jim would be torn into two....choosing between Khan and his crew. But Khan couldn’t forgive them totally and starting trusting them again right now. Not yet....  
____________________

When they were hanging in space over Betazed, Jim made a plan together with the officers for the leave of the crew. Only 50 humanoids were necessary to run the ship and make maintenance-work. The rest could have their leave on Betazed which could offer the most beautiful surroundings: beaches, rivers, forests and if people wanted something more like the pleasures that a city could offer, they could leave Betazed in one of the warp-capable shuttles and travel to the next “leisure”-planet in the Dorvan sector.  
So…time for plan A: getting the Betazoids to cure Khan.

Jim, Bones and Spock had traveled to the biggest Temple-area on Betazed: “The Temple of Health”. One of the priestesses of that temple had agreed to a meeting and a negotiation about how to “clean” Khan’s mind and body of the Orion gladiator-spheres. First the priestess was told that they “had a human who hat got those spheres in him and that they had heard that the Betazoids could remove them”.

The priestess wanted to know why the human could not “out-rage” the spheres in an arena fighting one of the stronger races. A possibility that other planets could offer. But as she found out that he wasn’t really human and there wasn’t really other races strong enough to fight him and win, except maybe the Klingons or the Gorns and that he had at least 10 spheres in him (if the “Khan” on Motaka had spoken the truth) the priestess called for the High-priestess Ketira. Since this case turned out to be that special.

High-priestess Ketira was called and she was told more about Khan and agreed on curing him and Jim did think for a long time, that it was his skills as a diplomat that had made that possible. But only a year later he did learn the real reason (as you will, dear reader, but first in a later story).

Khan was thawed and was brought to the place where they would cure him in the temple-area, to the healing-houses. He was in shackles, heavy Klingon shackles....around wrists, ankles and waist and Ketira and the others looked shocked and asked if it really was necessary to burden Khan with so much metal. It looked as if he would barely be able to walk.

“It’s at my own request, High-priestess Ketira. I have no wish to harm any of my fellow members of the Enterprises’ crew” explained Khan: “.....and I do not know which words might trigger another attack from me! To be shackled like this eases my mind. I don’t have to worry about being able to control myself if a sphere should be triggered. Like this my guards would have a chance to stun me, before I kill someone!”

Ketira had just looked at him and said: “I understand.......” and she continued looking at Bones, Spock and Jim who had escorted Khan together with some guards from the Enterprise and continued: “We would be able to cure Khan. But it has its price....and I don’t mean credits. People in severe need coming here hoping we might help them don’t have to pay but you’ll understand what it is you are asking Khan to go through.”

And they were shown into a huge room near the “Healing House”.

Khan looked around: “It’s a bit macabre, isn’t it?”

And the others looked in horror at the displayed items. It was a rather big collection of sheets, hanging from the ceiling. Every sheet was in a frame so it was totally spread out like a canvas of an oil-painting. Sheets that once must have been white but now was almost covered in variations of dried blood or blood-like bodily fluids from a lot of species in the Galaxy: from the brownish dark red, almost black, when the blood was based on hemoglobin with iron, over the almost turquoise or greenish blood based on copper, the faded yellow from bodily fluids containing calcium, the pink/lavender/purple with potassium and the bright orange based on mercury/platinum. 

Everywhere they looked were those coloured sheets hanging and the worst part was that the remains of those fluids showed exactly the amount of injuries and the shape of the body that had been lying on that sheet. A bit like the “Shroud of Turing”.......and there was in fact a sheet with the bloody patterns of a man who had been whipped severely and then had something piercing his feet and wrists....just that this blood was bright orange.

High-priestess Ketira pointed at the sheet....”I know you have something similar on Earth......a sheet...a shroud showing a crucified man. This species from the Hothep Sector survived but was severely traumatized. It was why they sent him to us.”

Khan pointed at the sheet: “It is a hell of a way to go! Not so much the pain....but the struggle for every breath” Khan looked at Ketira: “it is the asphyxiation that kills you!”

He turned around and looked away: “Even as an augment I need oxygen and hanging in my arms, whether it is in shackles not being able to touch the ground with my feet or being nailed to a wall just hanging there: My respiratory-muscles in my thorax were slowly immobilized. Faster just hanging in my arms. The nails through feet and wrists leave two possibilities: excruciating pain from your feet when you support your weight on them trying to catch yet another breath and the pain from your arms when you try to ease the pain from your feet. The outcome was the same.  
And those sadistic doctors who used me as a lab rat to test that didn’t keep an eye on me the whole time and I died after one day in the first case and after 3 days in the second. Everything went black......and Marcus killed another of my people because I didn’t fight death hard enough!”

Ketira looked at him in shock: “Oh my God. And what if they are not your worst memories? When we heal people you must know that those memories....they will be re-lived again. And having an eidetic memory, Khan, your memories would leave a severe impact on your body. In other words: what you remember will be seen on your body: every whiplash....every injury!”

Khan looked at her: “Then forget about curing me because then I’ll die....even if I heal well. This body will not be able to survive all my memories! Not even just 10 or 9 if the other Khan of Motaka told the truth. If the spheres are “glued” to some of my worst memories and I should re-live them, it’ll leave me as a shuddering heap of crushed bones and flesh!! I can survive one or two, as long it is not the events on Growlar II, but not all 10!”

Ketira touched his shackled arm: “But we have means to reduce the impact of the memories both on the mind and on the body. It is difficult and we are going to use every skill we have. You are the first though with an eidetic memory and with such a collection of bad memories as your friends have told us, too”

Khan looked at her and frowned a bit: “You do not believe the cruelty and the severity of what happened to me...or my real body...in my past? I can tell you that even Spock who have mind melded with me often and whose body has contained my soul....even he doesn’t know and hasn’t seen everything. What they have told you.....what they, my friends know, is just not all of it!”

Ketira touched Khan’s arm again: “Then I’ll find our most skilled and cleverest apprentices, priests and priestess’ to assist me!”

He looked at her a bit confused: “I’ve heard that normally you would not participate in the healing?”

“Normally....yes. But I think your case is the exception!” and with that remark she showed them all out of the room: “Your friends.....are they going to stay?” asked she as they walked towards the healing-house surrounded by Khan’s guards and Jim, Spock and Bones following.

“Why...is that a problem?” was Khan’s reply.

“On the contrary.......your healing and your sanity would be safer with friends close by. They’ll just have to know what to expect!”

Khan looked away from Ketira and looked at his friends: “They do know.....two of them are my T’hy’las. We have often mind-melded and the other one is my doctor. He has often enough grumbled about the state of my injured body holding his tricorder over it and murmuring: “This time is just one time too much, you bastard!”

Khan looked back at Ketira: “And at one occasion he was right...and my body died! And this time for good! All this misery started with my miscalculation on Growlar II”


	2. Chapter 2

The light in the room was dimmed. In the middle was a sort of big bed covered with a white sheet.  
Khan was lying in the middle of that bed, naked but for a towel covering his groin. He wasn’t shackled or in any other visibly way restrained. But his body was sedated thus leaving him only able to move very slowly.  
There was an anti-dote in his blood, preventing him from react to much on the rush of adrenaline that the bursting spheres would emit. Bones and the Betazoid-doctors had had quite a few arguments close to rows about the sedation and administering of anti-dotes and Bones had won.  
Not that it was a god victory since it meant that Khan was indeed very difficult to sedate or given any kind of stuff, since his nano-robots and his whole immune-system would eliminate nearly everything before they showed any effect.

So....the doctors on Betazed had finally found something that might work: a combination of at least 15 strong components of which only a single milligram of the weakest would have put a human to sleep for 14 days. This cocktail only made Khan sluggish and only because it was administered constantly through an IV-drop. The anti-adrenaline worked a bit better, but sedating Khan in order to diminish pain was practically impossible as nearly any sedation would prevent his nano-robots from working.

The Betazoid doctors had gained a lot of respect towards Bones as he apparently had a great knowledge about the other races in the Federation. He told them that being the chef-physician on the USS Enterprise he would have to know much more than just tellurian medicine and that that knowledge had helped him a lot when he had to deal with Khan’s physiology as he apparently mysteriously not only contained human genes but genes from other species in the Galaxy. It was a great mystery how human scientists had got their hands on alien genes and a even bigger one how those alien genes apparently were a part of the human gene pool too.

Bones tried to explain: “It is as if those scientists had put a lot of socks of different sizes and colours and shape into a large sports hall, turned out the light, blindfolded a man and asked him to go into that hall and bring out a pair of matching socks! I know that they didn’t manage to “match socks” the first time, or the second......but the 10th time, they made Khan and had never managed that since. And to put all those genes together is a hell of a lot more difficult than just matching socks!!! He is different even amongst his own: faster, tougher, more intelligent. He is really unique and that is why we do so much effort in trying to cure him! Not just his body, but his mind too!”  
Ketira had heard him. And she had an idea about how the scientists had managed to make augments and especially this version of Khan despite their limited knowledge and technology in the genetic area in the 20th century. But she didn’t say a word to Bones.

_____________________

The apprentice touched Khan’s head. Jim held his left hand and Spock his right. Bones stood ready with his tricorder. He “would very much himself like to monitor Khan too, thank you!” and the Betazoid doctors didn’t mind. Actually they found it very reassuring that Bones with his vast knowledge about Khan would monitor Khan too.

One of the spheres in Khan’s body was popped with a long syringe. To “eliminate” the Orion spheres the Betazoids had found out how to reverse the process. The spheres in the body would be activated and then there would be a feed back into the spheres in the brain, now activating the memories. Like that it would be easier to control the effects and the Betazoid that touched the patient’s head would in a sort of mind-meld be able to reduce and soften the memories and their impact on the body. They admitted though that they had never had a person with such a traumatized past and furthermore cursed with an eidetic memory.

The apprentice could feel that Khan struggled to keep calm. To be that confined...that drugged....was almost enough to trigger bad memories from his past....both back from the islands in the 20th century and in Marcus’ hands. But the apprentice was skilled and he both soothed with his physical touch and his mental touch. Like petting and talking to a scared animal. Not with the same words though. A “good dog, good dog” would not have worked! But to point out that Khan’s closest friends were here and they protected him did help.

Khan nodded slowly at the question if he was ready...the sphere was popped...and

_He was back on the islands (see eventually “Khan returns”) and he looked around. The situation was desperate. They were out-numbered and out-armed. Even if nearly everyone except from the smallest babies were fighting, the enemy could just send more soldiers and what did spears and bows and arrows, yes even the slingshot weapons they had made, that could kill a man more than 10 meters away, help against modern weapons? The only reason that they were not dead yet was that the soldiers or their masters needed them for something. But then ....why abandon the augments on the islands in the first place?......_

_What was that sound? Oh no.....gas. The soldiers were using gas against them. Drugging them or killing them? He shouted: “Hold your breath and run!” They could do that...hold their breaths for a long time....but despair filled Khan. He had failed his people...they would lose and die! The gas came closer...like fingers of mist......and it worked through his skin too.....it itched.....and after 30 minutes he needed oxygen desperately and inhaled...._

_When he woke, the soldiers and gathered them all. All 300 lying on the ground, still drugged. Not one single had been killed during the fight.....but now the soldiers picked out everyone looking under the age of 13. What did they intend to do?! Khan was still sluggish like the rest of the augments but he had a terrible foreboding and crawled against the soldiers...._

And in the healing house Khan’s words, as he pleaded for the lives of the babies and the children, could be heard and the apprentice who was touching Khan’s head and “saw” and felt everything, felt Khan’s abysmal grief, despair and feeling of utter defeat as the soldiers decapitated every augment under 13. As the soldiers killed Khan’s baby-daughter in front of his eyes, Khan’s emotions were that devastating that the apprentice like everyone else in the room had tears running down his face.

Khan shuddered and went silent, not pleading or begging anymore.....The silence in the room was deafening and they just looked at each other......

Khan opened his eyes not that sluggish anymore: “That was really a bad memory......and it had been erased. Even an eidetic memory can be erased as the scientist later did, when we were brought to another facility and trained again. Why they found is necessary to kill the children I never figured out......nor why they abandoned us in the first place. It might have something to do with the failures of version 11. I’ll never know.”

He looked at Ketira and pointed with his hand on the sheet: “Nothing here to your collection. A torment of the mind doesn’t leave any marks on the body. It is just as efficient to break down a person as torture to the body is, maybe even more. But it leaves no marks to be used in a later trial, thus making it far far more efficient!”

He closed his eyes: “I’m ready for the next sphere!”

Jim, Spock and Bones who all knew Khan well could feel that he had shielded himself. The mask of distance, the one he chose to show the world when he was most vulnerable was in place again, but they were not the ones to remove it, if that helped Khan to cope.

The next sphere was popped and now the humans and the Betazoids in the room could see that this one indeed affected Khan’s body. Even when the impact was reduced more than 80%, the doctors and Bones started to frown as they saw the amount of injuries starting to show on Khan’s body: whiplashes – and they were difficult to see as Khan was lying on his back, and whiplashes on his front too.  
His fingers and his feet started to bleed and they could hear some bones crack. Back in time when it really happened, his hands must have been totally crushed and his feet too. Now injuries were shown on his body too, just as if he had been beaten with bludgeons, maybe. And the apprentice “seeing” and feeling what Khan saw and felt then was openly crying and shaking. Ketira looked at him and took his place.

One of the doctors helped the apprentice out. They could hear him mumble: “His tortures just kept on...and on...letting his body heal enough to let him survive and then continued! He just knew the augments would die if he gave in so he kept on living....terrible! His connection with the others....I’ve never felt something like that!.....”

Khan opened his eyes again....and for just a second he thought he was back in the Facility again. He tensed..... ready for fight...and then he felt Jim’s and Spock’s hands and relaxed. Slowly his body healed his injuries and the Betazoid doctors and Bones’ different medical equipment helped too. The sheet was changed as soon as his body had healed. One of the assistants carried the sheet out of the room...almost reverently.

“They had told me that if I died or begged for mercy they would continue on one of the others” whispered Khan: “It was worse this time than the time when they punished me into obedience after they had erased my...our...minds. Just like Marcus did later, they forced me by threatening to do something similar to the others.......” he closed his eyes again: “I just had to endure....I was their leader...they were my responsibility......But it was just a test. To find out how much we could take. They said the same thing to my bothers as they tortured them too. I was the one who endured the longest time though.......”


	3. Chapter 3

While he had spoken his voice had gone quieter and quieter and Jim and Spock looked alarmed at the doctors, Bones and Ketira.

“He is just sleeping because of the drugs” explained one of the Betazoid doctors: “It wouldn’t affect his breathing, but we’ll keep an eye on him. Just leave. Get some rest yourself, sleep, eat and go out in the sun. We’ll call you if it is needed. But you’ll have to rest yourself or you will not be able to continue later”

Jim and Spock reluctantly let go of Khan’s hands. The doctors were right.....but they both felt that they were abandoning Khan. Bones didn’t like to leave either.

Ketira showed the 3 men into a room lying beside the one Khan was sleeping in and said: “Lie down and rest” and she continued: “You are not far away. You would even be able to hear if he would call your names. Right now he sleeps...and he needs that sleep as do you. Sleep first and then you can have a meal together all 4 of you. Your guards from the USS Enterprise have left the Temple area and are on leave at your request, Captain Kirk.”

“No need to be so formal right now. “Jim” would do” murmured Jim nearly asleep already.  
__________________________

Like that they continued the next 10 days. Khan was partly sedated and a bit sluggish but he preferred that from the restraints and they all tried to ignore the armed Betazoid guards that were around them.   
They were necessary even if Khan had shown remarkably self-control after a memory of Marcus’ scientists had made him attack Bones as the sedation had worn off unexpectedly. In one quick swift moment Khan had been out of bed and had had his hands around Bones’ neck but Bones had just stood there and said: “It’s me...Noonien....Bones!”   
And the name “Noonien” penetrated the fog in Khan’s brain and he let his hands fall down. After that he felt very guilty and blamed himself for nearly killing Bones but he was told that it was not his fault.

Even the rather experienced healers in the Healing House were shocked when they saw the sheets, sometimes almost dripping with blood from the even reduced impacts on Khan’s body and even Ketira wondered how Khan could be that strong and that relatively unharmed in his mind despite what he had seen and gone through.

The other Khan on Motaka had spoken the truth as he said there were 10 spheres.   
The first one popped on the USS Enterprise but Scotty managed to stun Khan before any harm was done. Apparently the spheres popped in chronological order so Khan had a warning about what to expect and he could warn if he meant that he could need extra medical help or maybe even extra of his own nano-robots or blood stored on the Enterprise.

The Betazoids made a list of the events for their protocols:

1: 10 years old. Forced to crush skull on friend. Mentally torture.

2: 18 years old. Soldiers killing augment-children on the islands. Mentally torture. Only minor injuries.

3: 18 years old. Khan severely tortured and told that if he begged for mercy or died the others would meet the same fate. Severe injuries. Took 4 hours to heal despite intensive medical care.

4: 27 years old (plus 300 years). In the hands of Admiral Marcus: thawed in a wrong way and despite difficulties to understand anything he had to face that Marcus destroyed the panels on 4 cryo-tubes before Khan realized what Marcus wanted from him. Severe mentally torture, minor injuries.

5: 27 years old. In the hands of Marcus - severe injuries and mentally torture. Marcus’ men killed some of the augments. Took 5 hours to heal. Intensive medical care.

6: 27 years old. In the hands of Marcus – severe injuries and mentally torture. Took 2 hours to heal. Intensive medical care needed.

7: 27 years old. In the hands of Marcus – severe injuries and mentally torture. One of the young augments were tortured and killed. Took 2 hours to heal. Mentally healing took 2 hours.

8: 28 years old. In the hands of Marcus – severe injuries and mentally and sexually torture. Khan believed everything to be lost. He thought Marcus had killed his crew as Khan fled. Took 5 hours to heal. Needed extra plasma and nano-robots. 

9: 28 years old. His crew was apparently killed. Abysmal grief, sorrow and anger as Khan believed his crew had been blown to pieces. Crashed with a star ship and fought Mr. Spock. Mentally torture/break down, minor injuries. Mr. Spock helped healing the mentally part. Took 2 hours.

10: The event on Growlar II. Severe injuries. Needed extra plasma, blood and nano-robots. Took 8 hours to heal.

Khan was still shaking in his bed after no 10 as Ketira said to Spock: “Can I have a word with you in private?”  
__________________________

They went into the room next to Khan’s room and Ketira turned towards Spock: “Are you aware how close he was to snap, to be insane forever as he thought his crew to be destroyed in memory no 9?” she asked.

But Spock just looked at her emotionless and she sighed heavily and said: “Why do I even ask?”

Spock opened his mouth but didn’t answer her question directly: “Ketira, you are a Betazoid and therefore you know a lot about minds. You are an empath and a telepath, but your species have never been god at reading Vulcans.   
Don’t make the same mistake as a lot of other species make, that Vulcans have no emotions just because we choose not to show them. We are brought up that way. To show emotions, to fail in our control of them is very shameful and I and my family lose honour, if I fail.   
Vulcans do feel.....rather violently, I can assure you, but we have learned not to show them. And furthermore, Ketira, I think you do not understand the concept of “carrying a Katra”! Khan lived in my mind for several months and there is nothing new in what I have seen happening to him here on Betazed. Details maybe....but that is it. Yes I know what impact my doings had on his sanity, but what amazes me is that he despite of my wrong-doings against him still accepted to be my T’hy’la – my brother/friend/lover. 

And Spock continued:  
"I do not understand what made me act so cruel against him. Yes he had a part in the partly destruction of the USS Enterprise, but Marcus had killed the most of the crew that died and done the biggest damage. But at that time I was blind....not logical thinking at all and that had only happened to me 3 times....acting so much out of character. Looking back I have to say that I do not understand the Spock, I was then!   
3 times where I can’t recognize myself: first as I in a fit of rage sent Jim down on Delta Vega knowing all too well that there were dangerous species down there. I made no effort to make sure that he landed safely and close enough to the base down there, where he would be safe. Thank god I did it because that is how we saved Scotty and Keenser and Jim met my older self, but never the less...I jeopardized Jim’s life.

Second as I was cruel enough to make Khan believe that we had killed his crew. My excuse then was I didn’t do that for real, but there is only a very thin line between “making him believe” and then doing it, I know that now.

And third time as I hunted down a wounded man in order to kill him for something he was innocent in doing. Three times out of character......and I can’t explain it...and yet...both Jim and Khan are able to forgive me.....amazing!”

Ketira looked at him for a while: “My excuses offered! Yes...you are right. We often do misunderstand Vulcans. About your “acting out of character”....do you have more examples?”

“Why do you want to know?” asked Spock

“Because you are not the only one who have noticed.....and I’m curious and want to learn more...” said Ketira.

“Hm...Yes....I have a few examples: Why did Neru act so extremely violent and almost insane when Spock Prime failed in saving Nero’s planet? It was out of proportion and lead to so many tragedies. Why did the Starfleet Command against all regulations allow almost the entire fleet to be at the other end of the Alpha sector and thus leaving only the Star-fleet Academy’s young and inexperienced graduates to man the 8 newest star ships to fight Neru near Vulcan?....and why did helmsman Sulu for the first and last time in his life forget to disengage USS Enterprise’s connection to the dock, making us arriving to the battlefield near Vulcan late enough to avoid Neru’s trap? Why did the Starfleet federation not discover the depths of Marcus’ betrayal and why did they allow a man who had been tortured and enslaved to be hunted down without a trial? Why did Jim, who normally would hold so high standards morally, allow himself to shoot down a man without trial? Why did I act as I did towards Khan?......I have so many more examples......”

But Ketira interrupted him: “You are not the only one. Why did we in the Galactic Council allow humans to fight the Buzzers alone not even showing them that there were other civilizations and species out there in space? Why did we allow Marcus to torture and abuse another living being? We knew about it, but never intervened...And we have intervened for less!”

Spock looked at her: “Is that why you all make an extra effort to help Khan, even if the connection with him openly wears you down a bit?”

Ketira laughed a bit: “If being connected to Khan wears me down a bit..... I think I should be able to manage considering that I only experience a fraction of what ever have happened to him!...”

Spock smiled...that is that the corners of his mouth were lifted a fraction of a millimeter: “That makes two of us!”

_____________________________

Finally...Khan had healed and provided the Betazoids with a collection of 8 sheets with his blood. The Betazoids were quite impressed with his abilities to heal and wanted to know more about his nano-robots. Khan agreed to give them some of the extra blood and nano-robots from the Enterprise.  
__________________________

The 4 men were sitting outside in the sun eating a meal.

“Well” said Jim with a big grin on his face: “time for the next adventure...since you are as good as new, Noonien!” and then he turned serious: “But I do not know what to do with my crew, Noonien. They have hurt you beyond limits......and you are allowed to ask for a trial, but......”

Khan put his hand on Jim’s and said: “But it’ll cripple your ship. I understand...I’ll somehow have to learn....not to forgive...because I have done that. Hell.....if I can forgive Bones jabbing numerous hypos in my neck at the first given opportunity and Spock for trying to kill me, then I should be able to forgive your crew for jumping to conclusions on a very feeble basis. But I’m afraid it’s going to take a while before I can trust them again....and mentioning the “next adventure”....we’ll have to collect those embryos on Antarctica. It’s too dangerous if anyone should try to thaw and develop them!”

__________________

But they didn’t have to go back to Earth after the hopefully profitable and successful visit to the Zena Empire in the future. The Betazoids had promised to take care of the embryos. Not destroying them but thawing them and repairing the flaws and failures. And bringing them up in an atmosphere of love and understanding and keeping an eye on any indication of insane behaviour. 

Khan thought that to be a better solution.....but that was before he had spoken to Ketira the last time before they left Betazed......

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I’m not a Trekkie and I’m not sure I’ve got the different races, Empires, Dominions and Federations correct. Not even how they are placed in the Galaxy versus each other.  
> All the stories in my series take place in the Star Trek universe and are in chronological order....in “the alternate reality” and “post Star Trek into Darkness”, except from the first 2 stories and the main point is that Khan Noonien Singh is not a bad guy after all...or is he? Are there hidden agendas somewhere?  
> And of course I do not own the characters. They belong to Roddenberry in the first place and Paramount in the second.  
> English is not my native tongue so I excuse if there are failures.


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